So far, India has only a few life insurance actuaries and no non-life actuary as the existing state-owned non-life insurance industry does not employ any of them. However, the new rules and regulations of the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority make it mandatory for both life and non-life players to have an actuary to be responsible to the regulatory body for the companies' products, pricing and solvency margins. Speaking to The Financial Express, Limaire revealed that the non-life section of the International Actuarial Association, of which he is the vice-chairman, is very keen to train people in India and other countries.

``The international organisation is very keen to fund the training programme in India,'' he said adding that the use of non-life actuary in the country is the need of the hour. The whole range of basic parameters of non-life insurance operations including product pricing, claim settlement and investment, reserves and re-insurance rest on this science and the use of actuarial science keeps the industry on the right track and can make it customer-friendly. India, which is moving from a tariff regime to a free market regime in the non-life insurance sector needs more and more non-life actuary professionals to manage the non-life insurance industry.

In a bid to develop some non-life actuaries in the country to meet the immediate demands of the domestic no-life industry, Lemaire suggested that some life actuary professionals can act as a non-life actuary with a bit of training. According to him it takes six to seven years to complete the non-life actuarial courses. Sources in the Insurance Institute of India said that the institution, with the motivation of GIC chairman D Sengupta, is planning a range of courses and programmes in collaboration of Wharton School and vari ous international non-life bodies to train risk management and non-life actuary professionals.